AL Qaeda terrorists posing as TV crews planned to blow up the Queen by smuggling explosives into last year’s Commonwealth summit.
Two huge outside broadcast vans belonging to the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation were seized after a tip-off from intelligence agents.
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Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, the Uganda Minister of Internal Affairs, said: “We received information that a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda, the Allied Democratic Forces, was planning to carry out terrorist activities at the Commonwealth meeting. The security services in Uganda neutralised these threats.”
He refused to comment on the precise nature of the planned attacks or reports that Ugandan armed forces had seized a speedboat loaded with arms and homemade bombs.
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An attack on the summit would have been devastating. The meeting in Kampala was attended by 16 presidents and 20 prime ministers, including Gordon Brown. For the first time the biennial event was attended by Prince Charles and Camilla as well as the Queen and Prince Philip. The incident is certain to prompt a review of the Queen’s security and that of other members of the Royal Family.
Dai Davies, former head of royal protection, said: “It will have huge implications globally for the Royal Family’s protection. It will obviously put forward planning into a huge new phase of concern.
“But the Queen’s security arrangements are very sophisticated. There would have been thorough advanced planning ahead of the trip to Uganda, an exit strategy would have been worked out, and so on.
“At the end of the day, the Queen is a great pragmatist – she’s a great believer in what will be will be. But she has absolute faith and trust in her protection team.”
It is feared Islamic terrorists may have stepped up their campaign against high-profile Western women following their most recent success in Pakistan with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi last month.
Al Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman Al Zawahri directly addressed the Queen when threatening attacks on Britain last July, following the knighthood given to Salman Rushdie, who angered Muslims with his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.
In a 20-minute tape broadcast on Arabic TV channel Al Jazeera, he threatened: “I say to [Queen] Elizabeth and Blair that your message has reached us and we are in the process of preparing you for a precise response.”
